


Ghosts That We Knew

by sangha



Category: Kings
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Angst, Depression, Homophobia, M/M, Suicide Attempt, angst with a somewhat happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 06:45:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1678625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sangha/pseuds/sangha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is stuck in that room with Lucinda. All he has left are his memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts That We Knew

Jack was flanked by guards on either side, but this time it wasn’t for his protection. They led him to an empty room. Lucinda was already waiting for him when he entered the room. At first glance, it looked just like any other room. It was spacious enough and looked comfortable. But Jack knew the truth; this was a prison. He noticed the windows could not open. There were cameras everywhere. He was trapped.

He had wanted to die. He had been ready to die. Silas wouldn’t even give him that. He had begged Thomasina for mercy, all to no avail. He would spend the rest of his life in this room and there was nothing he could do about it. 

Lucinda was talking to him, but he didn’t hear her. He walked over to the bed – the bed that was there to taunt him, every night, until he produced an heir – and sat down, defeated. He’d always made a point of his posture; back straight, shoulders low, like he owned the world and everyone in it. Now, he collapsed, looking more like a small boy instead of the cocky prince he’d once been.

This whole experience barely felt real, much like the rest of his life. He’d always known that his mother had carefully constructed the monarchy, and an image of their family with it. The public worshiped and reviled them, but never saw them as actual individuals, so Jack never saw himself as real either. His entire life was his mother’s creation, perfected right down to the minor details. Nobody ever showed any interest in getting to know Jack beyond that construction. He was a character in a story, existing only in the minds of others.

At least, until he met Joseph. Joseph was real; the only part of his life that hadn’t been previously orchestrated and planned. 

It had started out as a kind of dare, more to himself than to anyone else. He’d been out, playing the party prince again, when he noticed some guy checking him out. When the club started closing down, the man left and on a ridiculous whim, Jack followed him. He was usually much more careful than this, but something made him think “fuck it.” The copious amounts of alcohol in his bloodstream might have had something to do with it. 

Whatever it was, he followed Joseph until he caught up with him and they ended up at Joseph’s apartment pretty soon after. It was like a personal conquest, like he could claim this one individual for one night as his own. Except it wasn’t one night. 

He kept telling himself he ended up at Joseph’s after every night out because it was easy. Joseph was willing and he kept his mouth shut when he had to. Jack ignored the fact that he felt at ease at Joseph’s. That precisely because Joseph didn’t try to pry into his private life, he felt like this was real. That nobody had hired Joseph to play a cruel trick on him, or had in some other way planned every visit. 

Joseph first got to know him by touch. He didn’t ask any questions. Their bodies told a story of their own. Maybe that was why Jack kept coming back to him. After a while, Jack started staying the night. He liked the feeling of Joseph in his arms, of him molded against his own body. He slept easy on those nights, unlike when he slept in his own bed. 

Sometimes they would stay up all night, talking. It had scared Jack; he couldn’t even maintain the lie to himself anymore. He kept coming back for more than sex and they both knew it, even if they never said it. 

It felt natural, unlike everything else in Jack’s life. Nothing about their relationship was planned in any way. It was far from perfect; Jack would panic on a regular basis and leave abruptly, unsure if he was ever coming back. Joseph would get annoyed with his erratic behavior. Jack would refuse to apologize. Joseph was just as stubborn. 

But if anything, it only made Jack more convinced of the realness of whatever it was that they had. This part of his life was untouched by his mother, unspoiled by his father, unknown to everyone but him and Joseph. 

At least until Silas confronted him about his behavior. The bubble had finally burst. He had tried to stay away from Joseph, and for a while, he did. The blackout had been too big of a temptation, though. 

For the umpteenth time, Jack wondered if, had he said or done something differently that night, Joseph would still be alive. Maybe Joseph had been heading down this path ever since they first met. Maybe his whole presence had been toxic to Joseph. Maybe the artificiality of his own life had infected Joseph’s. 

The very last words they exchanged proved that, didn’t they? Joseph had started to wonder about them, about the realness of it all. Joseph may have convinced Jack that there were still real things in this world, but maybe the opposite had happened to Joseph. Jack felt like a doll put on display most of the time, so how could Joseph have seen him as real?

His anchor was gone. All he had now was Lucinda, who was looking rather helpless. A tiny part of him felt bad for her, but he couldn’t bring himself to be kind to her. She was just as much part of his prison as the walls were. 

Her constant attempts to touch him irked him. Everything about it felt wrong. He could see the pain in her eyes every time he rejected her touch. He refused to give in to his father on this. He would not give Silas what he wanted. He would not produce an heir so Silas could infect the child with the same ideas he had infected Jack with. He would not give his mother the pleasure of crafting yet another performance around a child. 

So he did not touch her. He barely ever looked at her.

Jack had no other human contact. Whoever brought the food refused to open his mouth, not even to say hello. The room was soundproof; he was cut off from the outside world in every way. 

He had no clue how long he’d been in the room. Time became irrelevant when you never left a room. Lucinda had finally given up on establishing a physical connection with him. They spent their days in silence, until one day, she asked the inevitable question. “Why won’t you touch me?”

Jack sighed. She should’ve figured it out by now. She probably had. She just wanted to hear him say it. “I love someone else.” Of course, that wasn’t the whole truth, but he figured it would get the point across.

She was quiet for a while. “Where is he now?” she finally asked.

“Heaven, or hell, depending on who you talk to.” He heard the edge in his own voice. 

“Oh,” she said softly. They were silent for a few minutes again. Jack thought that was the end of the conversation, but then she spoke again. “Are you alright?” 

The question came as a blow to his chest. His gut instinct was to make some snarky remark. “Stuck in a room for the rest of my life, do you really think I’m alright?” But he didn’t say it. It had been a long time since someone asked him how he was doing. He couldn’t remember the last person, apart from Joseph, who even asked. His parents certainly never did. Lucinda had every reason to hate him, but here she was, asking how he was doing. “I don’t know,” he replied. 

\---

He warmed up to Lucinda after that, but the room began to truly suffocate him. As the days went on, he knew he wasn’t going to leave this room. The guards were as stubborn as ever and there were no signs anything was about to change. The days dragged on, far too slowly, and he just wanted out. 

He got lost in his own thoughts; they were all he had left. He didn’t bother to get out of bed anymore. Lucinda still tried to maintain some sense of normalcy by getting dressed every day and keeping up as much of a routine as she could. Jack couldn’t do it. There was no reason for him to get out of bed. So he just stayed there, all day, barely eating. 

Jack wanted the end to come so badly, but it never came. He wondered if Silas ever looked at the cameras. Did he ever bother to check in on his son? Maybe nobody was watching them. It should’ve been clear by now that no heir was going to be produced in this room. They had probably given up on watching them. 

\---  
One day, nobody delivered food. The next day, nothing either. Apparently the plan was to starve them, now that it had become clear Jack wasn’t going to follow Silas’ plan. There was no point to any of this anymore. Nobody was coming for him. Not Michelle, not David. He was all alone. 

It was dark outside and Lucinda was asleep next to him, but he was wide awake. His sleeping patterns had been messed up for a while now. He got up and walked to the bathroom. Lucinda’s makeup and razor were next to the sink. For some reason she had continued to do her makeup and shave. He picked up the razor, dislodging the blade. It was still sharp. 

His hands were shaking, but he knew this was what he wanted. He had nothing else. Maybe they would let Lucinda go after this. He’d do something good, in his last moments. David would be proud, he thought with a wry smile. He sat down on the bathroom floor, the tiles cold against his skin. 

At first it stung a little, but the real pain followed quickly enough. He looked down at the crimson flowing down his wrist, almost fascinated by it. He was transfixed by it for a moment, before he heard someone banging on the door. He didn’t care. It was probably some guard who was watching him on the video feed. Fuck that guy. He took a deep breath when he heard a loud crash. Lucinda started screaming. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” a voice said. Jack thought he recognized that voice. The man crashed through the bathroom door. Jack felt woozy. “Oh no,” the voice said. “Jack? You with me?”

He tried so hard to open his eyes, clear his mind, but it was difficult. Finally, he managed to look at the man in front of him. “David?”

“I need a towel,” David said, more to himself than to anyone else. Jack couldn’t focus anymore. He felt someone wrapping something tightly around his wrist. “Jack? Hey! Stay with me okay?” Jack was vaguely aware there were people around him, but he couldn’t stay awake anymore. He just wanted to sleep.

\---

The first thing he heard was a soft beeping sound. He tried to open his eyes, but the light was unbearably bright. It took him a minute to adjust to the light and then he finally opened his eyes. 

“Jack?” David was looking at him, clearly concerned.

Jack was still trying to figure out what happened. He was in a hospital bed, his left wrist bandaged. It slowly came back to him. 

“I should go get Michelle,” David said. He stood up from his chair next to Jack’s bed and started walking towards the door.

“I fucked up,” Jack said. His voice sounded weird, like he hadn’t used it in a very long time. He realized that was probably true. David stopped, turned around. “I fucked up.”

David shook his head. “No, you didn’t. You’re not the one who screwed up.” He walked back over to Jack, put his hand on Jack’s shoulder, forcing Jack to look at David. “You did the best you could.”

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](http://www.hufflepuffbuckybarnes.tumblr.com)


End file.
